Review: SWEET FALL by Tillie Cole

Rating: 5/5 stars

Genre: New Adult/Contemporary Romance (Suited for ages 17 and up)

Series: It can be read as a stand-alone novel but contains mild spoilers for Sweet Home/Sweet Rome.

From the USA Today Best Selling Sweet Home Series, comes Sweet Fall; a tale of heartache, beating the odds and finding strength in the most unlikeliest of places.


We all have secrets.

Secrets well buried.

Until we find the one soul who makes the burden of such secrets just that little bit easier to bear.

Lexington "Lexi" Hart is a senior at the University of Alabama. Surrounded by her best friends, her loving family and having fulfilled her life-long dream of making the Crimson Tide cheer squad, everything is going exactly as she always dreamed it would. But beneath her happy exterior, demons lurk, threatening to jeopardize everything Lexi has worked to achieve.

When events in her life become too much to cope with, Lexi finds herself spiraling down into the realm of her biggest fear. Lexi falls hard, victim once again to the only thing that can destroy her and, on the way, finds herself falling straight into the dangerous tattooed arms of a guy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Austin Carillo, starting Wide Receiver for the Alabama Crimson Tide, must get picked in this year's NFL draft. He needs it. His brothers need it. Most importantly, his mother desperately needs it. Brought up in a world where the poor are forgotten, the sick are left to fend for themselves and no hero miraculously appears to pull you out of hell, Austin had no other choice but to make a living on the wrong side of the law—until football offered Austin the break to get his life back on track.

But when a family tragedy drags him back into the clutches of the gang he believed he had left far behind, Austin finds himself falling. Falling back into criminal ways and falling deep into a suffocating darkness. Until a troubled yet kindred spirit stumbles across his path, where Austin quickly finds he is falling for a young woman—a young woman who might just have the power to save him from his worst enemy: himself.

Can two troubled souls find a lasting peace together? Or will they finally succumb to the demons threatening to destroy them? 

I was up until the wee hours of the night finishing Sweet Fall by Tillie Cole and this book. Just wow! This book had me in tears while I finished reading it around midnight. Books don’t make me cry often anymore but this one hit me right in the FEELS. It was everything I could have hoped for and more. It consumed my life. I couldn't get it out of my head. I didn't want to stop reading and I didn't want it to end. I don't even know where to begin, so I guess I'll just start at the beginning.

Sweet Fall is book 3 in the Sweet Home series but it's also book 1 in the Carillo Boys series. It's told from a dual point of view, alternating between the male and female protagonist. Austin is "a Heighter from the boonies with a rap sheet" and Lexi is "an emo-anorexic virgin that can't be touched." Austin and Lexi are complete opposites, yet both are tortured by their past. Despite their diverse backgrounds they find peace, stability and comfort in each other.

!! Warning !! This book may be hard to read at times because Tillie goes into great detail about anorexia. I promise it's worth the read though.

Tillie starts the book with a poem she wrote about that inner critical voice pushing to perfection. I have never read a book with such in depth details on what goes on in the mind of someone struggling with anorexia. This subject is very taboo, like a lot of very personal struggles seem to be, and I think Tillie has done a superb job in portraying it. I commend her for her courage and strength in writing about the disease; for putting these words and feelings out there for the world to read. It couldn't have been easy. I believe, to some degree, we all struggle with the desire to be accepted and the fear of losing control.

 

(Photo Credit: Brie Wood Instagram)

 

"She concealed her tears but shared her smiles"

This quote is from the first few pages and is something I find myself doing often; even from those that I love.

It’s not often that I feel moved to create a graphic when reading a book. But there was a specific scene in Sweet Fall that I honestly could not get out of my head. It was like I couldn’t let it go until I had it to look at whenever I wanted. Does that even make any sense? Well here it is!

I encourage everyone to read Tillie's work. This is the second book of hers that's I've read and I can’t wait to read more. Check out where it all begins in Sweet Home. For more on the Carillo boys check out Sweet Hope and in a less than 5 days you can get Levi’s story, the youngest Carillo Brother, in Sweet Soul.

Tillie Cole hails from a small town in the North-East of England. She grew up on a farm with her English mother, Scottish father and older sister and a multitude of rescue animals. As soon as she could, Tillie left her rural roots for the bright lights of the big city.

After graduating from Newcastle University with a BA Hons in Religious Studies, Tillie followed her Professional Rugby player husband around the world for a decade, becoming a teacher in between and thoroughly enjoyed teaching High School students Social Studies before putting pen to paper and finished her first novel.

Tillie has now settled in North America, where she is finally able to sit down and write, throwing herself into fantasy worlds and the fabulous minds of her characters.

Tillie is both an independent and traditionally published author and writes many genres including: Contemporary Romance, Dark Romance, Young Adult and New Adult novels and happily shares her love of alpha-male leading men (mostly with muscles and tattoos) and strong female characters with her readers.

When she is not writing, Tillie enjoys nothing more than curling up on her couch watching movies, drinking far too much coffee, while convincing herself that she really doesn't need that extra square of chocolate.

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